Petter Portin, of the University of Turku, Finland, has been forced to retract four papers because they were duplicates of work he had already published.
Two of those retractions appear in the February 2011 issue of Hereditas. Here’s one retraction notice (link added):
The following article from Hereditas: Portin, P. ‘The effect of the mus309 mutation, defective in DNA double-strand break repair, on crossing over in Drosophila melanogaster suggests a mechanism for interference’, published online in Wiley Online Library (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/) on 1 September 2009, Hereditas, volume 146, pp. 162–176, has been retracted by agreement between the author, the Editor-in-Chief, Anssi Saura, and John Wiley & Sons A/S. The retraction has been agreed due to prior publication of a similar article in Genetica.
And the other (link added):
The following article from Hereditas: Portin, P. ‘Effect of temperature shock treatment on crossing over in the mus309 mutant, deficient in DNA double-strand break repair, of Drosophila melanogaster suggests a two-phase control of crossover formation and interference’, published online in Wiley Online Library (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/) on 26 August 2010, Hereditas, volume 000, pp. 000–000, has been retracted by agreement between the author, the Editor-in-Chief, Anssi Saura, and John Wiley & Sons A/S. The retraction has been agreed due to prior publication of a similar article in Genetica.
But it turns out that Pottin has also retracted two studies in Genetica, “Evidence based on studies of the mus309 mutant, deficient in DNA double-strand break repair, that meiotic crossing over in Drosophila melanogaster is a two-phase process,” and “The effect of the mus309 mutation, defective in DNA double-strand break repair, on crossing over in Drosophila melanogaster suggests a mechanism for the centromere effect of crossing over.” Both notices said the same thing:
This article has been retracted because it contains material already published elsewhere by the same author.
None of the four papers was cited more than twice. Given the similarities of their titles, we were curious if these were actually just two papers that had been duplicated. We asked Hereditas editor Anssi Saura for more details:
As for your question, I may tell you that the Genetica and Hereditas retractions are separate; i.e. a total of four papers have been retracted. The “how these duplications happened” question is something that the journals can not answer, we only detect that duplications have taken place and react accordingly. There was a gross overlap of content. Fortunately our editor detected it and put an end to it; he also alerted Genetica that acted in concert with us.
May I thank you in particular for your vigilance; duplication is a nuisance and all efforts should be taken to stamp it out. Editors and referees act in good faith. Let us keep it that way.
Neither Portin nor the editors of Genetica have responded to our requests for comment. [See update at end of post.] We’ll update with anything we hear back.
When we’ve written about duplicate publication before — sometimes referred to as self-plagiarism — we’ve had puzzled comments from some readers, and even a shrug from a journal editor. How can it be plagiarism if it’s of your own work?
The answer can be found in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals. In its section on duplicate and overlapping publications, the ICMJE notes:
Most biomedical journals will not consider manuscripts that are simultaneously being considered by other journals. Among the principal considerations that have led to this policy are: 1) the potential for disagreement when two (or more) journals claim the right to publish a manuscript that has been submitted simultaneously to more than one; and 2) the possibility that two or more journals will unknowingly and unnecessarily undertake the work of peer review, edit the same manuscript, and publish the same article.
[snip]
Redundant (or duplicate) publication is publication of a paper that overlaps substantially with one already published in print or electronic media.
Readers of primary source periodicals, whether print or electronic, deserve to be able to trust that what they are reading is original unless there is a clear statement that the author and editor are intentionally republishing an article. The bases of this position are international copyright laws, ethical conduct, and cost-effective use of resources. Duplicate publication of original research is particularly problematic because it can result in inadvertent double-counting or inappropriate weighting of the results of a single study, which distorts the available evidence.
So perhaps “self-plagiarism” isn’t a very precise term. But most journals require authors to stipulate that a paper is original work, for the reasons ICMJE notes, so when they’re found to have misrepresented themselves, journals are well within their rights to retract.
Update, 5 p.m. Eastern, 5/23/11: We heard back from Portin, who confirms that these were four different papers and explains how this happened:
The two pairs of retrected papers are different papers but based precisely on the same material the conclusions, however, are different. They were first sent to Genetica, but were not accepted. After that I send them to Hereditas where they were accepted. Then, however, I realized that the same materials can be used to solve other different problems also, and send the new manuscripts to Genetica where they were now accepted. I thought that it is not wrong if a scientist uses twice the same material of his own to solve different problems. Unfortunately, however, this action of mine was regarded as self plagiarism, and all the four papers were retracted which was a pity.
Seems easy to avoid, after publishing one paper with data, just cite it and say you’ve also drawn new conclusions in the subsequent papers. Just be honest.